Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Petah Tikvah played out a 2-2 draw in front of a disappointing crowd of 10,114 at Bloomfield Stadium on Monday night.

While Maccabi dominated the play in the first half, it was Petah Tikvah who struck first in the 44th minute with Márk Koszta – who replaced an injured Jocelin Ta Bi earlier in the half – converting from a beautiful cross from Andrade Cle after Roy Revivo and Heitor clashed trying to clear the ball. Then only a few minutes later Koszta scored again, beating out Ofek Malika one-on-one and Petah Tikvah took a surprising 2-0 lead into the break.

Things looked even in the second half with Petah Tikvah continuing to look threatening. But it was Maccabi that got onto the scoreboard in the 62nd minute with Ido Shachar passing the ball nicely into the box for Noam Ben Harush to put the ball in the back of the net for the home side to get one goal back. Just a minute later Sagiv Jehezkel seemed to put scores level shortly after he came onto the pitch for Osher Davida.

While Jehezkel was judged offside, Revivo was pulled down inside the box resulting in a penalty. Saied Abu Farchi took the penalty, but hit the goal post. Jehezkel again put the ball in the back of the net in the resulting mayhem, but he was again judged offside and the score remained 2-1 to the visitors. Maccabi finally got the equalizer that they were looking for in injury time with a beautiful strike from outside the box by Shachar to steal a point.

“Of course I’m not happy – we didn’t win, we cannot be happy, especially when we’re in our stadium,” Maccabi coach Žarko Lazetic summed up his feelings. “Yes, that’s football, even if we deserved to win. They scored two goals from two shots in the first half. We lost momentum around the penalty, but in the end only one point for us and we have to move on.”

“It’s a feeling of a loss,” Petah Tikvah coach Omer Peretz said after the game. “It’s disappointing, we can look at it glass half full, taking a point at Bloomfield. Maybe it’s good for us to reveal a bit of a different type of game and that we can stand with that pressure. We look forward now.”

“It broke our hearts, to give up a goal at the end of the game,” Petah Tikvah player Omer Katz said of the injury-time goal to Shachar. “There was quiet in the changerooms after the game. It hurts, but in the end every point is important.”

Maccabi now has 28 points from 14 games, sitting 7 points behind table leaders Hapoel Beer Sheva, while Petah Tikvah sits 3 points above relegation with 14 points. Maccabi’s next game is Sunday night away against Maccabi Natanya, while Petah Tikvah hosts Hapoel Kiryat Shmoneh on Saturday in an important game for both teams to stay clear of the relegation zone.